


Left Unsaid

by Doodleflip



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doodleflip/pseuds/Doodleflip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In May, Sirius told Snape how to get past the Whomping Willow. The other Marauders were not impressed. It is now October. Things are said. And other things are left unsaid.<br/>______________________________________________________________</p><p>He is reading when Sirius finds him, but at least he is alone. Remus has been reading a lot, recently, even more than usual. He’s been alone a lot too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Unsaid

He is reading when Sirius finds him, but at least he is alone. Remus has been reading a lot, recently, even more than usual. He’s been alone a lot too.

Sirius has been hoping for (dreading) a chance like this for days now, but it’s a lot harder without the map and he doesn’t want to ask out loud, so when he finally stumbles into the common room at seven minutes past four in the morning it’s not deliberate, it’s just that he can’t sleep. He thinks he might like to sit on his own for a while, maybe stare at the fire or look out a window. Do nothing. But it doesn’t occur to him that someone else might have gotten there first.

Remus is fully dressed like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Brown hair tidy, skin pale against the grey wool of a jumper that usually brings out his eyes but right now just makes him look tired. Sirius is barefoot and bleary with sleep but he knows this is the chance and it won’t come again so it’s not like he has a choice. It’s not like he ever had a choice, about this.

He stops about three feet away, well within Remus’ peripheral vision, but the other doesn’t notice him.

“Remus,” he says.

“Go away Sirius,” is the reply, delivered without so much as a shift in posture. He had noticed him after all. “It’s four in the morning.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“It’s four in the morning.”

“You said. I still want to talk to you.”

“Well –“ a page turned  “ –  _I_ don’t want to talk to  _you_.”

“I know.” Sirius hesitated, but decided against moving any closer. “I’m worried about you,” he said at last.

Remus snorted. “You’re a bit late. I might have appreciated your concern more a few months ago. It could have kept me warm in Azkaban.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry about that, you know I am, but – “

“Yes, I know you’re sorry,” Remus interrupted. “But you know damn well I don’t care. Sorry isn’t good enough.  _Sorry_  wouldn’t have saved Snape’s life.  _Sorry_  wouldn’t have kept me from being expelled. _Sorry_  wouldn’t have stopped me spending the rest of my life in Azkaban. But you didn’t care enough to think about any of that, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t think your apology is worth very much.”

“I know that, too. And you’re right.”

“Then why are you here?” Remus still hadn’t looked up, but turned the next page so violently a tiny tear appeared near the spine. Apparently unconsciously, he reached out and smoothed the paper with one long forefinger, as though soothing an injured animal.

“Because I’m worried about you.”

“You said. I still don’t see how that involves me, though.”

“I have to say  _something_. You’ve been awful these last two months, and it’s can’t be the full moon all the time. You don’t eat, and apparently you don’t sleep either. You look horrific. You’re not talking to James and Peter and you’re snapping at everyone else. You’re even snapping at  _teachers_ and you keep getting questions wrong in class. You’re not even reading, you’re just pretending to read in the hopes it’ll make me go away and you can’t even tell it’s not working! And I know I’m we’re not mates anymore and I know that means I don’t get to say this, but it’s scaring me and I have to at least  _try_. You’re not  _Moony_  anymore and that means there’s something really, really wrong, but no one else seems to have noticed. Even James said –“

“Oh  _James_ said,” Remus laughed, but it wasn’t a laugh Sirius liked the sound of. “Well then, it’s settled, isn’t it? It’s gospel. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling up to now, but if  _James_  says something is wrong… Well, who am I to argue? And that means you and he are friends again, too? How lovely. I suppose that makes sense. You’ve done nothing but suck up to him since September, trying to apologise, trying to win his forgiveness. He’s your best friend, of course you did. It was  _James_  you really hurt, after all. It was  _James_  you nearly made a murderer of. It was  _James’_  future,  _James’_  happiness, you were playing with. It was  _James_  you used like a toy, like a means to an end, like he wasn’t even human. It’s all about James. It’s  _always_  about bloody James, with you. I’m surprised you even remember my name.”

“Remus, I –“

“ _NO_. You haven’t even  _tried_  to get my friendship back. All summer, I told myself you probably weren’t talking to him either. That maybe you’d actually listened when we said to leave us alone, even if I didn’t really believe it. I was stupid. Didn’t want to admit it was just me, as usual. But once we came back it was obvious. Hadn’t I been getting letters, James said. Wasn’t I ready to throttle you just for a moment of peace. Like a lost puppy, he said, always trailing around after you. But it was just him. Of course. He was the only one who mattered. He was the only one who  _ever_  mattered. I don’t know what ever made me think differently.”

And just like that, it was over. Sirius had never heard Remus sound like that – not shouting, just so raw and  _furious_ – but now he just deflated, let out a shaky breath and covered his eyes with one hand.

“Please leave,” he said quietly, and he sounded almost normal again.

For a long, long moment there was silence. But Sirius didn’t leave.

“Of course you mattered, Remus,” he said at last, voice hoarse. “You mattered more than anything, but I didn’t – I couldn’t – you don’t understand.” He exhaled. “I had no idea how to even begin, with you. James – James is the same as me. Or he’s not, he’s better than me, he’s proven that a thousand times over - but we’re still the same. We work the same way. With James, I knew that if I just kept trying, eventually he’d give in. Eventually it would be more hassle than it was worth and so he’d let me back in just to shut me up. I knew he was angry, I knew he could be angry for years yet, but  _eventually_ he’d have to stop being angry. He might not trust me, he might not even like me as much as he once did, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever. James has made his own mistakes, you see - not as bad as mine - but he’s made some and he knows he’ll make some more, so he’d be willing to forgive just in case he ever needed someone to do the same for him. But you…” Sirius raked a hand through his tangled hair, shaking his head.

“You’re completely different. You don’t understand, Moony, but you’re not  _like_  us and that’s not a bad thing. You’re clever, and so’s James, but not in the same way. You read so much and never get bored, and you’ve got all these big ideas - you think of things that would never occur to anyone else. You care about all these important things, all these massive questions that make my head hurt. But not just that, you’re just… You’re  _better_  than we are. You care about people, really care about them, all their stupid little problems and everything. You know what someone’s thinking without needing it spelled out for you, and you know how to make them feel better about it too. You’re kind and it doesn’t cost you anything, even though no one’s ever really been kind to you. I don’t think you’ve ever hurt anyone in your life.”

“What I’m saying is - you don’t  _make_  mistakes, Moony, you’re the best bloody friend anyone could ask for, and I just… I just didn’t even know how to  _begin_  saying sorry to you, saying sorry for  _that_ , when you didn’t owe me anything at all. When you would never, ever have done something like that to me. So I just… I just didn’t. I didn’t do anything, say anything, because I didn’t know what to say and I was too much of a coward to try. Because I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and pretending I thought I did just felt like cheating. I’d done enough damage already and I was too bloody stupid to realise I was making it worse.”

Remus still had his eyes covered, but now, Sirius realised, his shoulders were shaking. He didn’t know when that had started. Not a sound escaped and Sirius was glad for that, but he had to do something. Anything. But he didn’t know whether it was better to walk forward or walk away, until he saw something splash onto the book’s leather cover. And then he stopped thinking.

He crossed the distance between them and reached out, hesitating for a moment before putting his hand on the Remus’ arm. But if Remus noticed it he gave no sign, so Sirius patted him awkwardly once or twice before swearing under his breath and sitting down heavily on the couch beside him, putting an arm around the other’s shoulder and pulling him over. Remus didn’t resist, just let himself be moved, leaning his forehead against Sirius’ chest and continuing to shake in silence.

Sirius didn’t know how long they sat like that, but after a while he noticed that his t-shirt was soaked through and somehow he had ended up with both arms wrapped around the other boy, hugging him tight, his cheek pressed against a mop of brown hair. Remus stirred.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not quite meeting his eye.

Sirius frowned. “What an idiotic thing to say.”

Remus snorted, using Sirius’ knee to lever himself upright, and Sirius felt oddly robbed as the weight and warmth of the other receded. “You don’t get to call me an idiot anymore.”

That sobered him up quickly enough. “You – you’re right. Of course. Sorry.” An awkward laugh. “I don’t know why you put up with me.”

“I don’t put up with you anymore either,” Remus pointed out in a tone that was entirely too reasonable, straightening his collar. Getting further away by the second. Sirius panicked. This was ending wrong.

“I – I meant it though. Just so you know. All that stuff I said. And you’re right, you don’t have to put up with me, but even if you never want anything to do with me ever again, I just… I just want you to know that. You’re the best of us Moony. You always were.”

And finally Remus met his gaze, searching his features for… something, he couldn’t tell what. Sirius didn’t know what he saw, or if he liked it, but there was something strange and raw and frightened in Remus’ own face that scared him a little. He’d never seen anything like it. Or maybe he had, maybe once or twice before – there was an aching familiarity about the moment, awful and broken as it was.

“And you’re far better than you think you are, Sirius,” Remus said at last. And then he  _smiled_ , a precious, genuine smile even as the shutters came down and that terrible, beautiful expression vanished. And as he stood up Sirius could suddenly see the old Remus again, not the haunting shell of the last few weeks. A little tired, maybe, a little sad, but their Remus -  _his_  Remus - back again. Somehow, at some point in the last few hours, he had gotten his friend back, and he didn’t even know how.

And as Remus bent to pick up his book, Sirius was hit by a sudden impulse. Later, he couldn’t have said what made him do it, only that at the time it seemed like the only thing he could do. Like he had to do something significant, something symbolic, just to show he understood what all this had meant – even if deep down he had no idea.

And so as Remus reached over, Sirius caught his hand and lifted the pale, bloody, bony knuckles to his lips. They were cold, but it still felt like the right thing to do.

And when he released him and half-smiled, partly to break the tension and partly just out of habit, he thought – just for a second – he saw that same terrible, beautiful, unguarded look in Remus’ eyes just before he turned away.

And he knew he wanted to see it again.


End file.
